Part of the Series
Moyers and Company
A vibrant grass-roots progressive movement is winning victories, raising awareness and changing lives in every part of the country, but you might not know that if your main source of information is mainstream media. In the midst of a widening economic divide, a corporate assault on working families’ living standards and the right-wing tea party grip on the Republican Party, millions of Americans are fighting back in their neighborhoods, workplaces and voting booths to challenge the plutocracy and restore democracy.
Many of these efforts have been led by baby boomer veterans of the civil rights, anti-war, women’s rights, consumer safety and environmental movements. But in the past decade, a new generation of activists – born after 1960 – has stepped into leadership. Like the change makers who came before them, these activists know that the radical ideas of one generation are often the common-sense ideas of the next: They are practical idealists.
Who are the young radicals and reformers among us now whose names may not be well-known to the general public, but whose activism is leading the country in a more progressive direction? We have collected a sampling here and would love to hear about other activists you would add to the list.
Activists to Watch:
Rev. William Barber
Aaron Bartley
Lucas Benitez
Deepak Bhargava
Jenn Brown
Patricia Castellanos
Teresa Cheng
Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins
Leah Fried and Armando Robles
George Goehl
Sarita Gupta
Brad Lander
Kandi Mosset
Ai-jen Poo
Ethan Rome
Angelica Sales
Daniel Schlademan
Amy Schur
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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